


when i grow up i wanna be a rockstar

by temporaryobsession (alexiel_rain)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angsty Schmoop, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Fluff, Growing Up, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Puppy Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:20:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_rain/pseuds/temporaryobsession
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the lj kink meme prompt: "Chuck and Mako's childhood crushes. They have crushes on each other's dads and fight about it all the time."</p><p>Chuck Hansen and Mako Mori have a history. If by history you mean traumatizing each other, rivalries, growing pains, and maybe building a friendship along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. with friends like these

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chuck and Mako actually have fairly similar backstories, and are the same age. The film hints that they've met before, so...here's my take on it.

_October 2016_

 

The first time they meet, it's at Hong Kong Shatterdome. 

 Chuck's been roaming the huge structure for weeks now, Dad's Lucky Seven assigned to Hong Kong while Sydney's own Shatterdome is going up as quickly as humanly possible. That's where he's going to become a Jaegar pilot, he thinks fiercely, in the city where...

 ...where Mom died. There's no avoiding that hard, bitter lump in his throat when he thinks about her, the way she'd flutter about and get conversation going over dinner.  There's only the cold silence now, between him and Dad, and he can't stand Dad just staring over his head. Can't stand the man who can't bear to look at his only son.

So he's gone and found himself a corner, right over the room they call the Kwoon combat room. Right now he can't do shit, because even in wartime they don't let angry thirteen-year olds pilot billion-dollar humanoid weapons, but they sure as hell let sixteen-year olds into the Academy, and he's gonna be prepared.  

 Turns out he's not the only one.

 He's startled out of his spot and nearly gives himself away to the sparring people below, 'cause he's not supposed to be here. Or anywhere but the living quarters, but he's gonna be a Ranger someday and that takes balls, right? Balls he seriously thinks he's going to need to explain himself to the person who has discovered him, until he registers the tiny, elfin face with dark almond eyes peering at him.

 Chuck's not stupid, he knows his dad introduced him to the Marshal's daughter that first day before abandoning him for the hangar in hopes that he'd make friends with her. That's even actually kind of why he hasn't; sheer, bloody-minded obnoxious spite if he's being honest. It doesn't mean anyhing that they're in similar circumstances, that they've both lost family. He never wants to talk to anyone about it, and even if he did, the Marshal's tiny adopted daughter wouldn't be where he started.

 "You are Ranger Hansen's son," she whispers, big eyes watching him. Her 'r' sounds are all softened to 'l's by her heavy Japanese accent, and he has to take a moment to parse that.

 He can't help but roll his eyes. "Yeah, and you're the Marshal's daughter," he hisses back. "We done stating the obvious?"

She eyes him less warily, now that they've established they're both underage military brats wandering in out-of-bounds areas. 

 "You are here to watch?" she asks, settling back into the shadows of the maintainence catwalk they're on.

 He's momentarily caught off guard.

 "Watch?"

"Them," she clarifies, waving one skinny arm at the prospective pilots getting their asses handed to them, twenty metres down.

 Chuck glances at her. She is dressed much as he is, in the darkest shade of clothing that the PPDC issues. Oversized shirts and pants, combat boots. While it won't fool anyone for a second, it does serve to blend remarkably into the dull walls of the Shatterdome. As they are doing.

"That makes two of us, then," he says, sliding back into his little corner. 

She doesn't exactly smile, but her oddly somber face lightens a bit.

 

 

Mako, he learns, is the same age as he is.

 "I thought you were younger!" 

 She gives him a look, before handing over a stick of sugarcane. "I am shorter. But not younger."

 He can't think of any real response and glowers instead. Chuck hates admitting he's wrong, and being fooled by her petite frame is an instance of this. She lets it go and they wait for the practice to start, gnawing on the sugarcane as they do so. Sugar's rare and expensive now, like it was centuries ago, but sugarcane doesn't need processing and it does okay in the patches of ground outside the Shatterdome.

 He doesn't know what they are; they're not friends, not really, but they've somehow agreed to meet here together every other day to watch the pilots practice. Sometimes they get lunch and take the trays here to discuss what they've seen, sneaking in by way of the maintainence levels. Those aren't off-limits, but that's because the laundry is there. The Shatterdome was never built to accomodate civilians, and her security reflects that: really difficult to get in, couldn't be easier to stroll around everywhere once inside. Except the hangar bays, everyone knows exactly who is or is not allowed there.

 Mako is still serenely chewing on a piece of sugarcane, when his father walks in with Marshal Pentecost, talking; then she chokes abruptly. Mako is not the type to choke so inelegantly. He would say something, but then the pair bows to each other and it's on, and Chuck's enthralled in watching.

 He hasn't seen his father in days apart from the snoring lump he sees in the opposite bed when he gets back at night, and he resentfully thinks that this still doesn't count as seeing his father. But the old man's not half bad, he grudgingly admits that much, fast enough to dodge the bigger Marshal.

 He turns to ask Mako about her father's style; he hasn't seen that particular move before, which Herc Hansen takes the brunt of and gets dropped to the mat.

 The sugarcane's frozen in midair as she stares at the fallen figure of his father, and Chuck is reminded of nothing so much as the soaps Mom watched while he curled up to her, in the evenings. The hard, bitter lump is back, but he pushes it aside. He's not thinking about that.

 Below them, Herc Hansen gets up. Mako lets out a tiny, breathless sound that's just short of a squeal.

Chuck narrows his eyes; she's...acting strangely. For all the surprising camaderie he's never expected to have with Mako, she's still a girl. Still so weird.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late 2016: Established that Herc was piloting Lucky Seven with his brother based in Hong Kong, Stacker adopted Mako in (mid?)2016, Hong Kong Shatterdome is open, Sydney's still under construction.  
> Stacker's status in 2016 gave me fits, because that was the year he saved Mako, adopted her, stopped piloting Coyote Tango and became Marshal. You can probably see why I had major problems trying to place where the hell he was in 2016. In the end I just decided to go ahead with the headcanon that he adopted Mako and went to Hong Kong Shatterdome first (because it's the first Shatterdome and also, you know, super relevant to the events of the movie), before he went to teach at the Academy.


	2. but with dads like that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so they're not exactly kids like the original prompter probably wanted, but I ended up sticking fairly closely to canon timelines and by the time it gets all in place for them to meet they're already teenagers. Thirteen, though, so their crushing is still more of the innocent childhood variety than the post-puberty 'holy shit that dude is hot and smart' kind. But, uh, it's a scientific fact that girls generally reach maturity sooner, so...Mako has a few thoughts about Herc that totally traumatizes Chuck. Who is old enough to understand it, but not _understand _it.__

 

_February 2017_

 

 Chuck doesn't catch on to what's been happening under his nose until months later, and by then it's too late. Mako's already in too deep.

"Why are you crushing on my _Dad_!" he half-shrieks, half-whispers. They're in their customary place high above the Kwoon combat floor.

Mako flushes right up to her hairline, but there's this little gleam there that says trouble. He learnt that after their original route up here got blocked on the basis of shitty security (they're not wrong) and now they're reduced to shimmying down a pipe from a floor up (one hundred percent Mako's idea. She'd even rigged up a safety harness).

"You have a crush on Sensei, too," she says, colour still high on her pale cheeks but not denying anything.

It hits him about three seconds later, and then it's Chuck's turn to do an impression of a tomato.

Mako looks very amused, if still tinged with embarrassment and defiant pride. Closet sadist.

She's not wrong, that's the thing. He can't help it, okay, Stacker Pentecost is an amazing man who's one of the first Jaeger pilots _ever_ , and he piloted Coyote Tango alone on that one mission. That's supposed to be _impossible_. His brains should be mush, but he's still there handing people's asses to them on a near-daily basis in the Kwoon. Out of it too, come to think of it. That's just badass.

Mako should get it; he knows she adores the man who adopted her. Chuck remembers the six-month anniversary of Onibaba's attack on Tokyo, how the TV broadcast had been showing the memorial. Remembers how Mako had gone quiet and increasingly miserable, before finally disappearing. He'd followed her, because he wasn't going to be responsible for something happening to her, but he hadn't been the only one. Pentecost was already there with her, tucked away in a small corridor in base quarters.

He remembers the way the Marshal's usually stoic demeanour softened to cradle Mako while she cried, and then later when he carried Mako to her room. Chuck doesn't think Mako knows he saw that part, but afterwards when he went to see her on the pretext of discussing more strategy, she'd quietly told him the story. And, well, goddamn but Chuck does understand how she feels. He hates it when the old man's right.

Dad never carried him to bed as a kid. Not that he can remember, anyway. He would resent Mako, but the Marshal is just so incredible that he can't find it in him to begrudge her the comfort of her protector.

Except that now she's apparently _crushing on his dad._ That's so horrifying.

"Why do you even _like_ my dad?" he demands, embarrassment forgotten in the face of trauma.

"Why do you like _mine_?" she counters, cheeks flushed again. 

Chuck sputters for a moment. "...he's the marshal! He's great at fighting! And piloting! It's not a crush, I just admire Marshal Pentecost!"

Her look says that he fools no one, especially not Miss Mako Mori, sharp as a whip and twice as fast on the uptake. She doesn't shy away from awkward, traumatic moments, either, as he finds out.

"And Ranger Hansen is the same, for me. Except that he is not Marshal, and he is very handsome."

Chuck desperately wishes that the ground would swallow him up, because that's his dad. And this is _Mako_ , who is the same age as him.

Clearly they are at a stalemate, because despite her calm, steady voice and expressions, Mako is still bright red. It doesn't last for long though, because the Kwoon is suddenly very quiet.

"Is someone up there?" The echoey voice of the Kwoon master below (who is thankfully not Pentecost) floats up. 

They exchange dismayed ( _terrified_ , because God help them if they get caught) looks, and wordlessly agree to talk later. Their topic of conversation has just become the least of their worries, and right now they have a pipe to scramble up.

 

 

While it's highly unlikely that their voices have been recognized after all the distortion through the shitty acoustics in the Kwoon room, an alibi never hurts. Which is the reason they are now doing the laundry for the entire crew of Horizon Brave. It's something that Chuck does, to keep himself from being a useless mouth to feed, while he waits for his chance to get in the Academy. Mako does the same thing, although she tends to be part of the janitorial crew more often than not. For someone so precociously dignified, she's not the least bit graceful in the kitchens. He's been forbidden from there too, lest he ruin more food supplies.

Mako hands him Room 3-415's laundry basket, and he unceremoniously dumps in the load, sets the basket on top and starts the machine while she sets up the next one for 3-416. He's thankful for the work; he doesn't want to think about the disturbing realizations he's had today.

But it's inevitable that the laundry baskets are eventually emptied, their contents sloshing in soapy water. Chuck is very determinedly _not_ -thinking about the whole idea of someone crushing on his dad, when Mako breaks his concentration.

"This will be like watching combat sessions," she says, eyes flickering towards him. The apparent non-sequitur is confusing enough that Chuck actually doesn't think about the situation for a second.

"What?"

"We do not speak of this to anyone else," Mako elaborates. "But we may talk to each other."

Chuck blanches. "No, uh, sticking to the first part's just fine. I don't wanna talk about my dad! Or your crush on him!" he says hastily. "First rule of Fight Club, okay?"

"Fight Club?"

Chuck blinks, and realizes that for all that Mako's gaining fluency in English, the cultural references are a little lacking.

"American movie. Junwei showed me, when I asked for movies with combat scenes." He's a little embarrassed by how much he liked it, but it's more gritty and like the styles he's seen some pilots use than a lot of completely unrealistic movies. For some reason the Horizon tech had refused to show him more, citing something about his dad. Goddamn Dad.

"I do not understand."

"First rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club."

Mako still looks blank. Chuck would usually give it up as a lost cause, except that he's got time on his hands while they wait for the laundry to be done. He latches on to it; anything to stop from having to discuss Mako's crush. Or worse, _his_.

"Wanna watch it?"

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into Chuck's emotionally stunted thirteen-year old head is harder than I thought it'd be. He doesn't cooperate when I wanna write stuff in that he's too blind to see. I might have to go for Mako's POV next chapter, she's a little better :p


	3. moving on in new directions

 

_May 2017_

 

Mako is nervous, but she tries to push it down best as she can. She knows Sensei worries that she hides too much behind a façade. He might not be wrong, but she thinks that's better than spilling it all out and making him worry even more. 

Besides, she thinks she has the right to be a little nervous. The last time Sensei said he had something to announce, it had involved two ranking officers from the Jaeger Academy coming to visit. That had resulted in more than a few late-night sessions of gym work when she couldn't get to sleep. It's a habit she picked up from Sensei, who would go and work off some things on his mind keeping him up, and she would follow him because she was still afraid of the creaks and groans of the Shatterdome's activity around her. 

She is no longer afraid, but that hasn't stopped the habit. In fact, she's passed it on to Chuck, who's now steadily working his way through the whole gym. 

"What do you think he wants to discuss?" she asks, swiping at the sweat pouring down her face with her blue towel.

Chuck ignores her until he finishes his latest set of repetitions on the weight machine. He's not sweating as heavily as her, but then again they've been forbidden to work with weights beyond those needed for light resistance training unless someone's there to watch them.

"Hopefully it's not to get us to perform like trained monkeys again." 

Mako is still slightly surprised by the sound of his newly deeper voice every time she hears it, although she tries not to show it. Chuck can be sensitive to the strangest things, and it doesn't help that his voice cracks once in a while.

For all the bravado and annoyance in his voice, she can still hear the undercurrent of nerves there. The last time, they had been called out for a demonstration spar, like the ones used to evaluate cadets. Chuck thinks it's only because of how high profile their respective guardians are, and Mako cannot say she disagrees completely. However, the fact remains that she intends to join the Jaeger Academy, and that had possibly been her first stepping stone to distinguishing herself amongst the other pilot candidates. 

Not everyone who gets to the Academy makes it as a pilot, after all. And Mako desperately, _desperately_ wants to fight as one. She will settle for no less.

They had performed well enough, she thinks, despite her nerves from having to do so in front on Sensei (not to mention _Chuck's_ nerves. She can only sympathise, and thank the heavens that Hercules Hansen had not been available). Possibly well enough to make an impression on the visitors, a lady and a hulking giant of a man next to her.

She settles into a long, lean stretch that Joanne Lee, Shaolin Rogue's main prospective pilot, taught her. The older woman had said that being flexible was good for a pilot, and Mako can understand that. Secretly, though, she admires and envies the strong, graceful way Joanne strides through the Shatterdome. She always looks confident, sure of herself and her abilities. _Keep your spine straight,_ she'd said, laughing as she tried to teach Mako some of her ballet exercises. _Shoulders back, chin up. Tell the world you're not afraid._

Mako thinks that the cadets could do with some instruction from a ballerina.

_Shoulders back, chin up._  

"We will be prepared, if they ask us to do it again," she says, concentrating on her stretches.

Chuck turns his head, and blinks at her, forehead furrowed. The furrows smooth out after a second, and he turns back to the next piece of equipment he has decided to conquer.

"Yeah." 

Perhaps she will be Drift-compatible with Chuck. It might be nice to have him as her partner.

 

 

"I've accepted the assignment to Alaska. Kodiak Island," Sensei says, apropos of nothing.

Ranger Hercules Hansen grunts and spears a piece of potato. "About damn time. The Chinese are getting a bit finicky about the whole command chain here not being local, never mind that they're the ones who wanted you here in the first place." Scott Hansen, who is a hairier, boisterous version of his brother, slaps the table, rattling all the cutlery and trays. "Ungrateful bastards."

"It was supposed to be temporary," Sensei points out mildly, cutting up a chunk of chicken.

Mako feels distinctly out of place here at the office. She comes here very rarely, and Sensei doesn't really use this room for anything aside from his paperwork. Chuck, who has grown two whole inches, still looks small where he's sandwiched between his father and uncle. He is as visibly uncomfortable here as Mako feels, frown badly hidden under a slipping mask of neutrality.

 "And the two of you." Sensei chews and swallows calmly, while Mako and Chuck focus their full attention on him. "Have apparently impressed the Academy enough that they would let you come with me, as students."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's much shorter than I'd like it to be, but this is where I stopped and it felt right, so that's it for chapter three. Did anyone catch the cameo? ;)


	4. situation normal: all fucked up

_October 2017_

The Jaeger Academy is fucking _cold_.

It's in the bumfuck of nowhere amidst the icy seas of the Artic, but Chuck'd take that any day over staying with his dad. For one, he's gonna be training as a pilot. Also, there's been this growing uneasiness between the old man and Uncle Scott. It'd been getting ugly for the couple days before Chuck had left, and he doesn't even want to think about what their shared headspace must be like. Cold as the wind outside, probably.

Herc Hansen hadn't been too pleased with Pentecost's announcement, but in the face of early admission to the Academy Chuck can't bring himself to give a shit. As much as he would deny it, he's pretty excited. _Early admission_. First cadet under sixteen. 

Well. One of two. He slides a glance over at Mako, whose hands are folded primly in her lap. They're waiting on their assignments in Marshal Pentecost's office at the Academy, but the man hasn't shown up yet. 

Chuck clears his throat.  "How long do yo-"

And that's when things start to go pear-shaped really quickly.

  

The computer starts up with the distinctive klaxon alert of a Kaiju alert. Anyone who has ever lived in a Shatterdome knows it and hates it, less because it heralds the arrival of a fucking monster and more because it's like a banshee on crack. Both Chuck and Mako jerk up straight, and the holodisplay lights up.

INCOMING CALL: HONG KONG SHATTERDOME LOCCENT

"Goddammit," Chuck says.

Mako says something in Japanese. It doesn't sound very polite. Huh. She's been holding out on him during their occasional mutual language tutoring sessions.

INCOMING CALL: HONG KONG SHATTERDOME LOCCENT

URGENT

Where others would be looking harried right about this point, Marshal Pentecost somehow manages to retain an air of being the calm center in the eye of a storm as he sweeps into his office, his personal comm unit's shrieks overlapping with the computer's.

"Answer call."

Song Ye-jin, J-Tech Chief at Hong Kong, is about as harried as Chuck would have expected. _"Movement in the Breach, Sir. Category III, codename Yamarashi. Heading towards the Americas,"_ Ye-jin reports, skipping the pleasantries.

The Marshal frowns. "Thank you for informing us. Is there a reason why you are calling the Academy and not Anchorage?" His tone says, _there'd better be a good one._ "The cadets are getting unruly because of the alert." Chuck can faintly hear the shouting from outside through the open door, and has to admire the man's composure in the face of a situation cropping up on his first day in fucking Alaska.

_"Anchorage has been informed, Sir."_ Ye-jin pauses. _"But this Category III is very large. Initial calculations of its trajectory place it making landfall near Los Angeles. Sir, the Los Angeles Shatterdome only has Romeo Blue..."_

"The PPDC wants Gipsy Danger there, don't they." 

Ye-jin looks somewhat consternated, enough that Chuck can see it even backwards through the holodisplay from where he's sitting, and through the wavering light.

_"The US representative is here at HQ, Sir, and he's made it very clear that Gipsy Danger will deploy together with Romeo Blue."_ He coughs. _"Made it clear very loudly."_

_"It'll be a good chance for the new pilots, though, eh?"_ Herc Hansen, while absent from the display, is apparently right next to Ye-jin in LOCCENT. Something in Chuck loosens up on hearing his dad's gruff voice, weary but good-humoured for the time being. He hates himself a little for being so childish as to miss his dad when it's only been three days since he left Hong Kong. _"Be good for the rookies to work in a Strike Group rather than separate drops. Those paper pushers finally got some tactics right and they didn't even do it on purpose."_

Ye-jin coughs again, trying to suppress the amusement under his mask of professional concern. Chuck hates himself a little bit more when he notices Mako's giggling a little at his dad's comment. _Giggling_. And she's kind of blushing, like she always does whenever his dad's around. Chuck desperately wishes he can erase all memory of the past thirty seconds.

"The US wants to show off their brand new Jaeger."

_"Yes, Sir."_ Ye-jin looks about a hair away from cracking a smile at the Marshal's dry tone.

"And so as ranking officer in Alaska I have to order Gipsy Danger to deploy and coordinate the drop with Los Angeles."

_"That's it, Sir. Chief Adler is technically authorized to give the order but he has no experience with Jaegers, only Jumphawks."_

"Send the data you have to Anchorage. I'm going there now."

_"Yes, Sir."_ Ye-jin takes the silent dismissal and cuts the connection.

The Marshal turns to Chuck and Mako, where they've been sitting in awkward silence for the duration of the call. He's not smiling, but Chuck swears he can see a glint of dark humour in Pentecost's eyes.

"Looks like your first day is going to be a field trip to Anchorage."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swore to myself that Raleigh would show up in this chapter, and then it refused to cooperate. Story of my life when writing this thing, God knows why I actually like doing it. Probably because I get to justify spending an inordinate amount of time, uh, researching. Yeah. For the fic.
> 
> Anyway, I do kinda like writing about the golden age of piloting. It's like there's just so much backstory there just waiting for me to screw up in increasingly non-canon ways. It's like entropy. :p


	5. love at first sight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been trying to get this done, for my own peace of mind if nothing else...but I've recently moved to Australia, so it's taking a wee bit longer than I thought it would. I also thought seeing the country and meeting the locals might help me get into Chuck's headspace more, but apparently not. The people I've met so far are lovely and so friendly XD ...uh, Chuck definitely doesn't give off the same vibes.

 

Unsurprisingly, Anchorage is also fucking cold. Maybe a bit less windy, though, the hulking structure of the Shatterdome shielding them as they alight from the Jumphawk.

Marshal Pentecost wastes no time in striding in and asserting himself as top dog in the area, while Chuck and Mako trail behind him like baby ducklings. They're in LOCCENT within five minutes of their arrival at Anchorage Shatterdome, which is impressive given its sheer size. It's smaller than Hong Kong's Shatterdome, but not by much.

Chief Adler, a thin dishwater blond man, is there to greet them. He's dressed in a thick jumper patterned with reindeer rather than the PPDC uniform coat, and Pentecost's left eyebrow jumps up. Adler smiles wryly, eyes crinkling. "Not quite the formality you're used to, eh, Stacker?"

"Not quite," the Marshal acknowledges dryly. He slides off his gloves, although he leaves his coat on. Even with indoor heating, the Alaskan chill is faint but present. "The reindeer is not a PPDC approved insignia, John." The crinkle of his eyes and slight upturn of his lips bely the stern tone.

Out of the corner of his eye, Chuck sees Mako glaring at him in that kind of squinty way of hers, and abruptly realizes he's been maybe staring at her dad for a while now. He flushes and tries very hard not to.

Thankfully, nobody else sees their little exchange, and the crackle of the speakers draws most everyone's attention.

_"Gipsy Danger, both pilots ready."_

Chief Adler glances at the Marshal and gestures to the comm panel; Pentecost nods and steps up to stand next to the tech. "Prepare for drop."

"Prepare for drop," the tech repeats into the mike; there's a strange twang to his voice that says that he's very, very far from home here in Alaska. Chuck eyes the dark hair and eyes, the golden tinge to the guy's skin that speaks of Asian heritage, and he's suddenly struck by a pang of...what? Homesickness, for Hong Kong, for all that he's still always thought of Melbourne as his home city. It's slightly discomforting to realize that Hong Kong had been a home to him as well and now he's thousands of miles from home too. Either of them.

 _"Tendo!"_ A voice crows over the comms, good-humoured and a little rough around the edges, like the speaker's just rolled of bed not long ago. Chuck immediately associates it with the soft rasp of cotton on skin, appealingly comfortable, and is promptly embarrassed by the train of his own thoughts. Possibly he's been addled by the fucking cold here, he normally doesn't think weird thoughts like that.

Pentecost's attention is drawn from where he's been frowning intensely at the fluctuating display of the Pacific and the Kaiju's progress across it, and he raises a brow. Someone tries and fails to stifle a snicker.

The tech - Tendo, apparently - grabs the mike and clears his throat. "Marshal Pentecost on deck." There's more than a hint of a smirk in his voice.

 _"...acknowledged. Welcome to Anchorage, Sir,"_ a different voice, deeper and smoother than the first, says after a short, awkward pause from Gipsy Danger. Her other pilot, presumably. Chuck can see Chief Adler openly smirking at the lapse in protocol from Gipsy Danger, and decides that Alaska might not be too shitty after all if the crew here can keep their senses of humour during a Kaiju attack.

It's not all fun and games though, and the almost playful atmosphere in LOCCENT is leached away by the building tension, as the Kaiju begins to draw near to the American coast. They're running out of time and it looks like Romeo Blue might have to start the party first, so to speak. Gipsy's getting close, but the red dot representing the Kaiju is definitely moving faster than the blue dot of Gipsy Danger with her Jumphawk escorts. Even Gipsy's pilots have shut up, their cheerful repartee with various LOCCENT officers dying away into a silence punctuated only by occasional check-ins.

It's almost a relief; as entertaining as the Becket brothers' way of continuing each other's sentences seamlessly was, as well as the way the Marshal's eyebrow kept going up, it was also giving him the shivers. It's frighteningly impressive how strong their handshake is, the way they're responding as one mind; subsumed into each other's heads and yet still have enough spare mental capacity to engage in banter like it's nothing. The focus they have...that's what makes them so special, Chuck supposes. Out of a thousand candidates, they're the ones picked for the latest Mark III Jaegar. And the younger one, the first one he'd heard over the comms, is only six years older than him.

It's...awe-inspiring. What it takes to take down a Kaiju is right there in front of him, and Chuck can't help but feel pretty damn excited he gets to see it firsthand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cackles* the beginning of Chuck's love affair with Gipsy Danger. Maybe Raleigh, but the bastard doesn't even really show up in this chapter. Anyway, Chuck's already gushing over Gipsy...


End file.
